


Bleed Well

by shalashaskalot



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Amnesia, Drug Use, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Multi, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reader-Insert, but honestly that's the point, i don't really think the rating is actually explicit but just in case, light kaz/reader early on, one-sided for some of this, so buckle up, tagging violence for eventual gunfights and other wild ocelot garbage
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-26 16:44:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 19,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14406258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shalashaskalot/pseuds/shalashaskalot
Summary: Your mind is a puzzle with blank pieces; Ocelot repaints them and assembles them as he sees fit, whether or not the shapes actually go together. Keep pressing and the edges will bend and eventually mold themselves to their new home. Keep pressing and you'll fall in love with him. Maybe that piece wasn't supposed to go there after all, but there's no undoing it. He's already working on another puzzle, and this puzzle's picture looks like a man in a hospital bed.





	1. One

 

There was something inexplicable that bound you to Ocelot. You didn't quite understand it, and at first, neither did he. 

 

You knew who he was when he found you locked in your dirt cell, even though you couldn't see through the blood and grit that matted your eyelids together, even though you couldn't hear him speak over the sound of your own heartbeat thumping in your ears. It was his touch that told you everything. The strange but unmistakable feeling of leather gloves sliding over your scalp and through what was left of your hair, tilting your head back to see if you were still alive. 

 

Every day, you'd heard something about him from the men who held you captive. The Ocelot Commander with his terrifying blue eyes and gleaming revolvers, his gloves and scarf the color of fresh blood. 

 

How you made it back to his camp, you weren't sure. You woke up on a cot in first aid, surrounded by several people that you realized with a pang of anxiety weren't familiar in any way. He sat close by, perched on the edge of a desk, observing you with keen eyes that were as alluring as they were intense.

 

He didn't move until the medics were gone and the crowd had died down. You teetered on the edge of sleep until you heard his spurs jingling toward you, but you couldn't raise your head to look at him.

 

"Don't," he said quietly, motioning for you to stay put. "Вы говори́те по-англи́йски?"

 

"Yes," you tried. Your voice came out as a dry croak.

 

"Good. Español? Deutsch?"

 

"Nihongo."

 

"Interesting."

 

He pulled up a stool beside your cot, placing what looked like a broken dog tag in your hands.

 

"Nobody made it out but you," he told you, scooting a little closer. "Do you know how long you were down there? Any idea?"

 

You fumbled with the broken tag, turning it over and over again in your hands. Somebody had purposefully cut it in half with wire cutters, you figured, and scratched the name off almost entirely. 

 

"No," you answered finally.

 

"Almost a year. Just a few weeks shy. I have a lot of other questions for you but right now, I want you to rest. I'm getting you out of here at 0500 and we're heading to Cape Town to get you patched up and rehabbed. Are we clear?"

 

"Yes, sir."

 

You expected him to leave but he sat by you a moment longer, studying your face in the too-bright lights. It gave you a moment to study him as well; you met his gaze, taking in the lines of his sharp face and all the little details you could pack into your hazy memory. Silver blooming at his temples, disappearing into the rest of his white-gold hair. Wind burn on his painfully high cheekbones, a flat spot on the bridge of his nose where maybe he'd broken it before. Individually, his features were beautiful. Altogether, he was haunting in a way you couldn't quite shake.

 

When you finally drifted off to sleep, you dreamt of his red leather gloves, smooth and cool against your skin.

 

* * *

 

"Serval."

 

"Serval?" you echoed.

 

"That's your new name. Unless you'd rather go by your name from your old unit," Ocelot said, nudging your lunch tray a little closer when you couldn't quite reach. 

 

"I don't remember it."

 

"Do you want to remember it?"

 

The question had a strange underlying tone to it that implied something, intentions completely unreadable. He paced around the end of your hospital bed slowly, dragging his fingers along the wooden frame, his eyes trained on your face as you mulled over your answer. 

 

Maybe it was delirium, disorientation, maybe the soft morning light filtering through gauzy curtains that made him seem a little less predatory. The alarm bells ringing in the back of your concussed head were muted at the very least; you were painfully aware of who he was and what he was known for, but you felt...sort of safe. A little uncomfortable, but only when you kept his gaze for too long. Or when the morphine began to wear off.

 

"I don't want to," you said simply. "Why should I?"

 

"You tell me."

 

You didn't answer. He seemed to like that, for whatever reason, grinning at you as he turned to push back the sliding balcony doors. Fresh air flooded the room, cool and crisp, lightly scenting your blankets with salt air and something vaguely floral. 

 

"You like the ocean?" he asked, letting the breeze ruffle his hair. 

 

"I guess I do. It smells nice."

 

"You used to. Your file said you spent a lot of time in Norway fishing. You have a boat waiting for you in a dry-dock in Trondheim. Not that you ever got to use it."

 

The statement didn't fill any gaps in your memory. Instead it rattled around in your head like a lost puzzle piece, bouncing off vague flashes of colors and shapes that only clashed with it. 

 

"I know everything about you, Serval," he continued, still staring out over the balcony. "If you want to go back to your old life, I can help you. But I think that...as you are, you have been presented with a unique opportunity."

 

_What a strange way to put it._

 

"As it stands, you are a blank slate. You didn't speak Japanese before you were captured, do you know that? Someone taught you that in captivity. You don't know what your favorite food is or your favorite color. You don't know who your allies or your enemies are, you are a stark white canvas that _I, personally_ , want to help you paint."

 

You pushed your lunch around on the tray warily, watching him as he circled back around to the other side of your bed.

 

"Why me? I'm sure there are plenty of other soldiers like me," you told him, and he whirled on you.

 

You never saw his hand go to his holster or the revolver come out. It happened so quickly that you were still trying to add it all together as you sat at the end of the barrel, staring up at him without so much as a blink.

 

"You don't know fear," he said softly, cocking the hammer. "Your face is flushed but you don't actually feel it, do you? There's nothing telling you to run or move or try to disarm me. Does your heart beat faster? Do you get that little burn of adrenaline at the base of your skull?"

 

You couldn't really give him an answer. Sure, you could feel your pulse flutter and the chill that slithered down your spine, but your brain only registered those as individual symptoms. As a whole, you knew they would be a normal flight response. Individually, they could be misconstrued as anything. The flush on your cheeks could be because he was so strikingly handsome. The chill could be from the breeze or the IV drip in your arm. 

 

Muted alarm bells. Was your self-preservation completely gone? Was it carelessness, a lack of something to live for or just a broken sort of...disassociation?

 

"Let me piece you back together, Serval," he finished, lowering the hammer and holstering his pistol slowly. "You can be anything you want to be. I can help you. I want to help you, I want to watch you turn the world upside down when I let you loose. All you have to do is say yes."


	2. Two

It took months to get you out of the hospital. Months of surgeries to repair ligaments and tendons and all sorts of broken bones, months of Ocelot sitting beside you and brushing your hair while he had you repeat English words back to him without a Russian accent. 

 

He would leave you tapes of other accents at night unless he fell asleep beside you at the bedside table, which was fairly often. Sometimes you would stir in the night to hear him still talking to you, reciting practiced lines to you even in your sleep until finally you could speak freely without even the slightest hint that you weren't American.

 

It was easier this way, he told you, to gain trust. The more dialects and accents you could mimic, the better, but American was particularly useful. 

 

When you were finally discharged, he hauled you out of Cape Town and back to some KGB outpost in Afghanistan. It was remote, quiet, just the right place for him to keep you hidden and sheltered until you were ready to face the world on your own. He rearranged half of his own quarters for you to sleep in, promising you a room for yourself when you were ready, but you had grown used to his presence in the hospital and sleeping in his room was comforting. 

 

At first, Ocelot held you to a strict morning ritual. He woke you at the exact same time every day, ushered you into a quick shower, and had you dressed and groomed well before it was time for breakfast. When he couldn't tame your hair he clipped it short, and no matter how hard you tried you could never quite arrange your own red scarf the way he wanted. He kept yours tucked in, your whole uniform reminiscent of his old Ocelot Unit outfits, but the scarf seemed to be his way of marking you and you accepted it.

 

Breakfast was made in a very particular way for you. It was a numbers game, measured down to the hundredths to make sure you would gain mass that you'd lost in the hospital without adding on fat. Lunch and dinner were exactly the same concept, though sometimes he'd let you cheat and sneak you a treat on the weekends. 

 

The other men in the compound didn't speak to you unless spoken to. You weren't sure what sort of weight Ocelot held in the KGB, but he'd established early on that you were outside of their jurisdiction. Everything about it screamed illegal but as long as Ocelot was happy, the others chose to look the other way. For all intents and purposes, _you didn't exist._ And this was fine with you.

 

Even when you were well enough to begin physical training, it was as if you were inside your own bubble with Ocelot. You could feel the others watching from a distance, knowing they were probably jotting down notes as you went or spreading further gossip, but neither of you had time for them. 

 

You became a binary system. Where he went, you followed, and vice versa. Serval did not exist without Ocelot, Ocelot was never seen without Serval. 

 

As your strength grew, so did his trust in you. He began to let you tag along on scouting missions, tasking you with jotting down details as he carted you around on the back of his prized horse. Your personal perception was important to him and he would always stop to make sure you were on the same page, going over your notes and pointing out things you may have missed that he would have deemed important. The exercise taught you several things about how his thought process worked and once you nailed it down, the two of you meshed seamlessly. 

 

So seamlessly, in fact, that you almost completely negated the need to speak to each other during missions. You knew what he needed, when he needed it, and how to acquire it before it was an issue. He never had to ask or order. It spoiled the two of you, and when you had to include someone else in your little outings it was absolutely _awful_ having to spoon-feed information to the other operative. 

 

Combat training was a different beast. Sure, you'd been doing a little more PT every day, but that didn't save you from the fact that he fought like his namesake. Wild, fast, unpredictable. It took you several weeks of having your ass handed to you in front of the whole compound for you to finally catch onto his tells; there weren't many, if you were being honest, but you at least began to learn how to react to his advances fast enough to avoid his blows. If he couldn't hit you, though, you were certain you'd end up tangled in the dirt with his bony wrist cutting your trachea in two. His grip was inescapable and dangerous. 

 

And then one day your canteen tasted a little off. The water left a bitter film in your mouth. 

 

You knew immediately what was happening, but you hadn't expected it so soon. What was it? Were you about to hallucinate for 12 hours straight or was it just a little downer? 

 

Your sparring match was miserable. Your head spun, his outline was hazy at best; the sun made your head ache as if it had been split in two with a white hot ax. He rolled you in a matter of moments, letting the edge of his knife dig into your throat for extra emphasis. 

 

It didn't wear off, and your canteen tasted strange again the next day. The edge of your vision began to glitter and shapes began to warp ever so slightly, just enough to throw you off. This time, you held him off for a little longer, but ultimately you wound up on your back with him perched on your chest again, knife at your throat, reopening the fresh scab he'd left the day before. 

 

He knew you would try to avoid your canteen on the third day. You knew he'd likely dose up your breakfast or lunch, which one you weren't sure, and it didn't help that he purposefully destroyed half your food to make it look like he'd tampered with it. Nothing tasted strange, not even the little sports drink that came with lunch, but within 30 minutes of eating you felt as if the world had tilted off its axis. 

 

It went on for days. You never knew if it was going to be in your food or your water or really _how_ he was dosing you up, but it never failed to worsen just before you sparred him. Nights were spent coiled up on your bunk in the corner of his room, paranoid, wondering if the walls were _breathing_ or if it was just you. 

 

Rationally, you knew that it was just a drug, but your brain could do absolutely nothing to stop it. The feelings were manufactured, sure, but that didn't make them any less real. Time became absolutely unfathomable. Sleep did not come as scheduled and you only slept when your body absolutely could not function anymore without it, which meant you collapsed several times during training in a comatose heap. 

 

The last time it happened, you didn't wake up in your bunk. You woke up with the sun warming your face and dirt ground into your cheek. The world spun when you opened your eyes, the orange setting sun leaving a neon arc in your vision as you tried to right yourself, but you fell to your back.

 

You could hear his spurs circling you. The sound bounced around inside your skull.

 

"Serval," he called softly. When you didn't move, you felt the flat sole of his boot settle against your throat. "Serval, get up."

 

It took several seconds to parse, but the pressure of his boot finally sparked a response. You made a swipe at his leg, earning a blunt kick to the temple that made you roll away. He circled you, watching you push up to all fours, and his laugh sounded like wind chimes.

 

Or was that the sound of his spurs? Everything ran together. There was no horizon, just a blur of color and shapes that seemed to tremor in the wind. 

 

When the first blow came, you almost didn't care. The force of it knocked you winding but the pain was nominal compared to the vertigo. You giggled a little at the way your body seemed to vibrate from the hit. It felt awkward, forced, as if you didn't really mean to laugh, but then again you had absolutely no control over the emotions that came bubbling to the surface.

 

The second hit knocked loose something that sort of felt like anger. You finally located him in all the swaying colors and shapes, locking onto his pale skin that glittered gold in the sunset. Of all the things that were wrong, that were distorted and ugly through the filter of the drugs, he still looked right. Perfect, radiant, glowing. Never wilted by the hot desert sun.

 

Another hit, this time a swift boot to the ribs, had you seething. You swung back, undeterred by the glint of a knife in his hand, and even when you felt the cold steel bite against your your skin you kept swinging. He wasn't playing. Neither were you. You knew you could very well die, but did it matter? Nothing told you to stop. Nothing told you to be scared of death. Or pain. The hurt could be absolutely stunning at times, but it only fueled your rage. Every nick and bite was gasoline on a brush fire. 

 

His blade flashed in the dwindling sun. Your first reaction was to try and block it but instead you felt it slip between the bones in your palm. Recoil? No. You closed your hand around the blade as best you could, wrenching it from his hand as blood slicked the handle and his fingers. There was a scuffle, the feeling of spurs digging into your skin _somewhere_ , his nails scratching wildly at anything he could reach until you were both trapped in a bloody heap in the desert sand. 

 

For the first time ever, it was you perched on his chest, blood trailing down your arm and dripping onto his neck and collarbones as you held his own knife to his throat. 

 

"Serval," he said simply, and you froze.

 

Pain came all at once. It dulled the effects of his drugs, giving you a brief moment of awful clarity as he prized the knife from your fist. Bite marks littered the side of his neck and scratches trailed up your arms as far as you could see; you weren't quite sure what to do except cradle your hand against your chest and remember to breathe. 

 

* * *

 

Detox, you decided, was worse than taking a boot knife through the hand. Maybe worse than being shot. After Ocelot had patched you up he'd quarantined you in his room, lights off, water and food close by until you finally felt the drugs began to lose their grip.

 

It felt like ants crawling beneath your skin at first. He sat beside you on the edge of your bed, swatting your hands away as you tried to scratch, but the next time you woke up you felt as if he'd skinned you alive. 

 

Maybe he had. You couldn't tell. All you knew was that everything burned, all at once, everywhere. Even your lungs and the backs of your eyelids, things you weren't ever really aware of until that moment. His touch was no help; it was overwhelming, sensory overload, and it took everything you had not to bite or hit him when he combed over you to check your vitals. Swallowing the pills he gave you was like swallowing a hornet's nest.

 

You vomited until your body felt like it was going to collapse in on itself. Even when there was nothing left in your stomach you wretched, over and over again until your throat was raw and you coughed up fresh pink blood with every other breath. 

 

Then everything was cold. It seemed as if he'd flipped a switch in the room, everything went from dark and burning to too bright and frigid. Your whole body rattled with an imagined cold and he heaped blankets over you until you almost couldn't move beneath the weight, but you were still cold. 

 

When nothing seemed to help, he climbed beneath the covers with you, wrapping his whole body as tightly around yours as he could until your shivering slowed. The first time you willingly fell asleep, not forced from drugs or exhaustion, you fell asleep with your face buried in the folds of his scarf. He smelled of peppermints and gun oil and new leather, and the fabric of his telnyashka was worn but softer than anything you could ever have imagined. 

 

* * *

 

"They gave me the same drug when I was 15. I was strung out for a couple weeks. Maybe longer. But I cried like a bitch when I stared hallucinating," Ocelot said, almost mumbling, dabbing at stitches over your brow. "Maybe it's cuz I was a kid and you're like...what? My age? I dunno. I really thought that would break you."

 

You weren't quite sure what to say. It was the first day you'd been able to get up and motor around on your own unassisted, and your brain was still foggy. He was littered with bruises just like you, maybe a little worse, but your stab wound was something you'd been holding over his head as a joke since you first came around.

 

"Why try? What did I do wrong?" you asked. 

 

"Nothing. I guess I wanted to see if you would leave."

 

"Do you want me to?"

 

"No. Here, do the cut on my back, will you? I can't reach."

 

He handed you a sack full of cotton balls and a bottle of antiseptic, turning to sit on the edge of your bunk. It took a second for him to shrug out of his top but you grimaced at the angry-looking gash across the middle of his back. 

 

"I landed on a rock or something," he added, hissing when you pressed a soaked cotton ball into the wound. "I always land on my back. Why?"

 

"What do you mean?"

 

"I--...y'know what, I'll be honest. The first time I met Snake, he put me flat on my back real quick."

 

"Snake like... Big Boss?"

 

"Yeah. Anyway. I guess if you aren't going to bail on me now, then we need to start your resistance training. Get you up to par on that. I'm going to start taking you out in the field more, start bringing you in for interrogations...whole thing," he sighed, flopping back beside you on the bunk when you were finished. "I want you to stick around. Things run a little more smoothly when you're around because I don't have to ask or order or talk to you like you're a seven year old."

 

You weren't quite sure what he meant. Partners? That sounded odd. You didn't like the notion of being his second in command, either, but you didn't feel he was implying that. 

 

"What do you think?" he asked, nudging you.

 

"I think I can stick around. Not like there's anywhere else I could go," you told him. 

 

"Mostly my fault, I guess."

 

His suddenly casual demeanor was...different. It wasn't weird or off-putting, but you weren't used to him being so soft and open. Each day, he seemed to slip a little more into it, as if he'd finally decided that he liked you and you weren't just a science project. 

 

It was nice. Part of you still wanted to be angry at him, and it was justified. You still didn't understand his motives or his logic behind the knifing in the desert other than some weird proving ceremony but when he was calm like this, when his walls were down even just a little, there was a boyish mischief to him that did strange things to your pulse. 

 

Maybe it was the little glint in his blue eyes, or his too-long limbs that he didn't quite seem to have ever grown into. Disarming things like the soft sunshine-colored hair that had grown out a little and fell around his face, softening his gaunt face. This Ocelot could charm the pants off anyone he laid eyes on and you realized very quickly that he'd _pretty much_ already done it to you, considering you were beaming down at him like a lovesick puppy even while you nursed a massive stab wound he'd inflicted personally. 

 

There should have been alarm bells. Alarm bells as loud as the bells of Notre Dame, as obnoxious as a klaxon, but there were none. You couldn't think when he said your name, or when you caught the scent of peppermint, and the longer you sat there beside him the more you realized he'd already done more damage than just flesh wounds.


	3. Three

It wasn't clear if your emotions were garbled from trauma, drugs, or maybe both. It _was_ clear that somehow you'd fallen in love with a man who quite literally had made his name in the "interrogation" business. You couldn't really do anything about it and you didn't intend to try, but it was there, itching like a healing tattoo in the back of your skull. 

 

He was blissfully unaware. You made every effort to keep it this way. The African sun kept your cheeks colored pink for you, hiding the flush that crept over your face when his hand settled at the small of your back protectively. You liked his protective tendencies, you loved his lanky, clumsy gait and you adored the little noise he made when he stretched. 

 

You came to understand very quickly that your love was one-sided. He was painfully infatuated with Big Boss and you couldn't quite make out if it was admiration, fanaticism, or a romantic kind of love. The way he spoke of Snake, on and on about how they'd met and what they accomplished after Snake Eater, almost seemed nostalgic. 

 

At first, he was hesitant to speak with you about anything outside of your jobs. When you made the mistake of asking him _why_ he liked Snake so much, you thought he'd never, ever shut up. Taking MDMA with him was probably your worst idea, even if it was part of your training, because he rambled for _hours_ about the man in a euphoric haze while you lay love-sick and bored out of your mind across the end of his bed. All you could think about was how badly you wanted to let your tongue follow his Adonis belt beneath the hem of his jeans. All he could think about was Snake, probably in the same context. 

 

There were nights that you slept in the desert, back-to-back under the stars, and you could feel a sadness settle over him. You slept close that way for safety with his revolvers tucked under whatever you were using as pillows, but the closeness only clued you in on his mercurial moods. You could hear him sigh heavily or picking at threads on his sleeping bag when he was thinking too hard. Sometimes he'd back up against you even closer as if your warmth was comforting and you shamelessly basked in the attention. 

 

You knew every scar on his body and he knew yours; the two of you were painfully familiar with stitching the other up or dabbing delicately at wounds. There were no boundaries and no room for modesty or shyness. Half the time, you ate off the same plate out of habit, looking over each other's shoulders even when you weren't in combat areas. You were always close, always within reach of the other, not out of fear but _confidence_ that if you were inseparable then by default you were _invincible_. 

 

It proved mostly true. There were situations in which you were certain you would have died had he not been right behind you, and there were times when he admitted he wasn't sure he would have made it out without you. Your only fear, if you could call it that, was ever being separated from him. 

 

But even amidst all the intimacy, all the shared spaces and breaths, you knew his heart was somewhere with Snake. Some days it hurt. Physically, mentally, emotionally. You hated waking up before him because you always ended up thrashing about in your own misery, alone with your thoughts until he finally stirred and your train of thought was able to latch onto him and right itself. The fact that he wasn't aware made it a little easier sometimes but mostly it was salt and vinegar on an ever-present wound that you could never quite stitch closed. 

 

You watched his Snake obsession take its toll on him. His hair silvered and his eyes grew weary, only crackling to life when there was blood in the water. He grew out of his mischievous, flinty demeanor and into a stern, maybe even callous wraith of himself. He wasn't insensitive to you but you saw it in his interactions with others. What used to come off as "just Ocelot" seemed so much more dismissive, as if he had no time for his own crew.

 

When he relocated the two of you to KGB _headquarters_ without explanation, you knew something was wrong. 

 

"Shalashaksa" became more of a threat than a name. When you walked the halls with him, the sound of his spurs sent people scattering. You could tell some part of him really, really liked that, but his thoughts began to seem farther and farther away. His mind being so detached lead to more than one situation where you had to step in and stop him during interrogations; he could no longer parse how much was too much. Prisoners were hobbies to keep him physically occupied while he let his thoughts wander somewhere far, far away, ruminating on something so secret that he wouldn't even hint at it with you. 

 

"How do you feel about Cyprus?" he asked suddenly, never looking up from a massive file he'd been poring over for days. 

 

"Is that what you've been thinking about so hard?"

 

"Partly. But I hope you like it because we're going to be there quite a bit."

 

"What's there?"

 

"Big Boss," he said simply. "And opportunities."

 

* * *

By "opportunities", Ocelot meant Diamond Dogs and Kazuhira Miller. 

 

The air between Ocelot and Miller was like nothing you'd ever felt before. It was so tense, so thick between them that you wondered if you could really feel it or if it was just your mind playing out an over-used metaphor. You couldn't tell if they hated each other or if they wanted to fuck each other until one of them broke a pelvis.

 

Ocelot's naturally teasing nature didn't help the situation. You could tell Miller wanted to follow the little trail-up of intonation at the end of Ocelot's sentences but you couldn't quite read if it was greed or lust. Maybe a combination of both. Everything reflected on the outside of Miller's gleaming aviators was a business venture in some way, and if he couldn't make money off it, you were certain he'd try to take it out to dinner at least once. 

 

Ocelot never, ever said no to dinner; you knew it was because he liked being lavished at Miller's expense, only to slam the hotel door in his face when too much champagne was had and moves were made. 

 

Miller was bitter, disenchanted with the world around him. Paranoid. You hated that you couldn't see his eyes behind his sunglasses. He hated that you had the best poker face in the world. Neither of you could quite size the other up but you began to see how much it was eating at him.

 

His offer was simple. Help him with Diamond Dogs, keep a watchful eye on Snake who was apparently in a coma. Ocelot seemed to have already known the part about the coma which, if you were being honest, salted you a little. Why wouldn't he have told you? You wondered what had been in that gargantuan file he obsessed over back at the KGB station, but there was no reason to assume he meant any harm by leaving you out of it. In fact, you were certain he had a reason that he'd explain later, but it didn't help the sting of being excluded.

 

It was a simple agreement at first, until Miller asked you to leave Cyprus with him and fly to Japan to "secure some funding."

 

By funding, he meant renting out a unit to basically pirate cargo from other pirates who were planning to rip a shipment of "ordnance", as he called it, on its way to the US. You didn't bother to ask where he got his info. You didn't on the second mission, or the third mission, or when you flew to Norway or the Arctic Circle somewhere in Russian airspace because _you didn't really want to know_. 

 

Being separated from Ocelot was draining. You weren't dependent on him but it began to feel like walking with one shoe untied. Things that you would usually turn to him for advice on gave you great pause, especially when there was a coke-fueled Miller babbling behind you about _revenge_. Christ, if you heard that word one more time you thought you might beat him to death. He was sort of likable when he wasn't on a hell-fire and fury vengeance kick. Definitely wasn't sore on the eyes. Maybe he was even a little...fun sometimes. But he could not hold a candle to Ocelot when it came to adaptability or level-headedness.

 

More than once, his anger got in the way of a smooth mission. And more than once, you ended up dragging a kicking and screaming Kazuhira out of a hail of bullets. 

 

His idea of making it up to you was always something that involved liquor. After a scuffle in Korea, he had you turning up shots in a seedy bar, praising you in the same breath he cursed you in. He absolutely couldn't get over how much he disliked Ocelot and enough alcohol or whatever he'd snorted off the back of his hand would have it spilling out of him in no time.

 

"I don't know what you see in him," he slurred, probably for the seventh time that night, his arm heavy around your shoulders. "He's so shifty. I mean, you get a little weird sometimes, but I think he's just rubbed off on you."

 

You shrugged.

 

"There's so much potential in you," he continued. "You've been...the biggest help, the best thing that could have happened to me right now. Why would you want to waste all of that by hiding in his shadow?"

 

"He saved my life--"

 

"When you live the way we do, saving someone's life doesn't hold the same weight as it does in the movies. You saved mine back in Norilsk. Could've let me get shot to shit and left me in the snow. But I wouldn't...dedicate myself to you over it. Look at Ocelot, he's been slaving over Snake since '64 and what's it gotten him? I loved Snake. I loved him. But I can't build my whole life around him. Definitely can't now, he's just tubes and a ventilator."

 

You weren't quite sure where he was going with his argument and you didn't particularly care. Heavy drinker though you were, the alcohol had your head spinning and you could feel the heat in your face.

 

"Serval," he started warily, as if he'd suddenly been hit with a doomsday revelation. "Serval, tell me you're not in love with him."

 

"I'm not," you said simply. The lie was practiced and he bought it.

 

"You're just...inexperienced, then. You'll learn the hard way."


	4. Four

"Miller likes you. Get close to him, if you want. Gouge him for info while he's high out of his mind."

 

You tried not to laugh at the suggestion. Ocelot was completely serious, hunched at the desk in your Cyprus hotel room with several vials of some unlabeled drug. 

 

"By get close, you mean...?" you pressed. "And what even is that?"

 

"I mean whatever it takes. And this is something I'm about to take for resistance training."

 

The needle glinted in the light from the desk lamp and you shivered involuntarily.

 

"Shouldn't I be here for that, then? If you're not going to tell me what it is?" you asked, watching him draw from one vial just to mix it into another. "You don't even have it labeled."

 

"Don't worry about me, this is super mild. Almost like a sedative. I'll sleep it off," he said quickly. "Anyway. I don't care if you have to blow him, just omit that part when you report back to me. Get under his skin, tell me what makes him tick. And I'd appreciate it if you brought me back some real Alenka from Russia, I've been craving chocolate."

 

"I'll see what I can do."

 

* * *

 

Russia turned out to be a slow job. Agonizingly slow. Lots of wheeling and dealing and making empty promises to people you were certain would come back to haunt you, but every day that passed gave you another opportunity to learn Miller and his habits.

 

Enough drunken escapades elsewhere had left him fairly trusting of you. When he was comfortable, he'd let little tidbits slip here and there that you filed away for later use; his favorite whiskey, his favorite food. His taste in watches and civvies. It was almost too easy to pocket this information but you used it to surprise him with seemingly thoughtful gestures.

 

"I got you a pack of cigarettes while I was out" never failed to perk him up. He always seemed so pleased that you remembered he liked Lucky Strikes; you thought it was hilarious that he forgot he ever told you. 

 

When he began to warm up to you, you turned on the charm. Angling your body toward him when you talked, standing a little closer, letting your voice drop a little when you spoke to him. When you began to feel a little more brave, you openly flirted with him, watching his eyebrows shoot up over the rim of his aviators when you very _pointedly_ placed a cigarette between his lips. 

 

The day the deal went through, you knew you had him hooked. The back of the discotheque was dark and smoky but you could feel the heat of his face next to yours, shouting orders over the music and slurring as he skimmed his hands down the sides of your waist mindlessly. 

 

"We blend in until they're gone," he told you. "Make sure they're not followed."

 

The other party's exit was behind the stage. Perfect excuse for you to drag him out onto the dance floor, up close to the band so that the crowd pressed him even more tightly against you. Dancing, you thought, looked absolutely ridiculous but you didn't mind it so much when you were glued to his broad chest with his lips brushing against the shell of your ear. 

 

He _wanted_ you, and the thought gave your addled brain a little ego boost. 

 

You weren't sure when or how you ended up pressed against the inside of your motel room door, tongue-tied with Miller. Or why you were letting his cold hands roam around beneath your coat. Truthfully, it was nice; he was handsome by any standard and his kisses were the _dangerous_ kind that were so, so hard to get enough of. Soft, sweet, and deliciously poisonous. As toxic as the liquor on his lips. You would have been lying if you said you didn't want him too, maybe not in the same way but...did it really matter?

 

Against your better judgement but absolutely because you craved attention, you let him lavish you. He was the kind of lover you figured romance novelists really tried to write about but had never experienced, too good to be true, so good that you saw stars on the discolored motel ceiling when he was done with you.

 

_It's just a fling, he won't care in the morning_ , you thought. He wasn't in love with you. That much was apparent now. But then you met his sky-blue eyes across the pillow and wondered exactly what you'd gotten yourself into.

 

* * *

 

Don't tell Ocelot.

 

You made at face at yourself in the mirror, stifling the thought. Where had that come from? Ocelot was the last person you were worried about. Miller, on the other hand, was your current priority, and you knew he was sulking in his window seat, staring out the wing of the airplane like a scorned child. 

 

You straightened yourself up the best you could before you returned to your seat, politely offering him something from the hostess's cart and expecting his curt dismissal. 

 

"Is there a reason why you're mad at me in particular?" you asked quietly. 

 

"I'm not angry at you. Mostly at myself. Maybe a little at you."

 

"Why?"

 

He huffed, tossing his head back against the seat cushion dramatically. 

 

"You ever realize something about someone too late?" he asked you, cutting you a look over the top of his aviators. 

 

"Several times."

 

"It's nothing against you, Serval. You're likable. You're attractive. I had a great time, pretty sure you did too, but when I woke up this morning and rolled over I saw _Ocelot_ tucked into the sheets with me and not _Serval_."

 

* * *

 

When you finally wandered back to your hotel room, you didn't even have to tell Ocelot. Somehow he just knew, as if he had bugged your brain, and you could read the subtle distaste on his sharp features. 

 

"You smell like a cheap hooker," he mumbled. "Vodka. Stale motel cigarette smoke. When's the last time you had a bath?"

 

"Well, you look like death warmed over," you shot back. "Are you going to tell me what you've been shooting or are you still trying to pass it off as a sedative?"

 

He did, in fact, look like death incarnate and your stomach sank when you realized just how pitiful he was. The bags beneath his eyes were completely uncharacteristic, just like the bruises in the crook of his elbow. Even his hair was a tangled mess. 

 

"C'mon. We both need a hot shower and a stiff drink," you told him, and you were surprised when he let you lead him to the bathroom. 

 

It took quite some time to brush the knots out of his fine hair. You picked and pulled until every last strand was free and you could run the comb through his hair without a snag. He sat quietly, almost asleep on the edge of the tub even as you yanked at the worst spots. 

 

"Are you okay? Have you been sleeping at all?" you asked.

 

"Too much, honestly."

 

"Eating?"

 

"Probably not enough. But I'm fine. Run me a shower, would you?"

 

"I'm staying in here with you. You look like you're about to pass out."

 

He huffed, irritated, but he didn't say no. 

 

"I take it your time with Miller didn't go well or you'd already be telling me about it," he said, his voice bouncing around in the small bathroom from inside the shower. You sat down with your back against the tub, dragging one of his holsters over to toy with what looked like a brand new revolver. 

 

"It didn't. I overstepped. He's hard to read," you answered. 

 

"I'm not shocked. What did he say?"

 

"He says I'm too much like you." You emptied the bullets out of the chamber, tentatively spinning it over the towel beneath you in case you dropped it. "Where'd you get these? They're heavy."

 

"A gift. Tornado-6. Little more tactical. Did you get anything out of him or did he just shut off like he always does?"

 

"I...don't really know how to explain it. I thought I was getting somewhere but I went too far too fast and I probably completely fucked that relationship."

 

He laughed, but the squeal of skin sliding against the ceramic tub made your heart jump into your throat. You tore the shower curtain away, panicking, finding him sprawled over one end of the tub where he'd barely caught himself with the built-in towel rack. 

 

"You are _not okay_ ," you hissed, kicking your shoes off before stepping into the shower to pick him up. He groused at you the entire time, mumbling about how you were going to ruin your clothes until you finally had him straightened out back under the hot water. "What's so secret that you can't tell me? Why don't you trust me?"

 

"I do trust you. But it's...easier this way."

 

"What is?"

 

"Serval."

 

"What can't you tell me? You've been hiding this since we left HQ and I want to understand--"

 

"There is no understanding, Serval. I trust you. But I'm saving you a whole lot of grief by leaving you out of this. The less you know, the better," he growled, his hands tight around the sides of your face. "Listen to me. This is not something you can do with me. And I know that's really fucking hard to fathom because we have done _everything_ together since I found you but _you_ have to trust _me_ when I say that keeping you out of the loop, for once, is easier. I have to know you're not gonna go snooping, either, because if this cover gets blown **_I will have to kill you_**."

 

You expected that phrase to make you feel something but it didn't. He held your gaze, searching for any sign that you understood what he was telling you. 

 

"I will not compromise your...mission," you said softly, mulling over his words. "I'm sorry for pressing."

 

"I'm sorry I have to do this to you. I really am. If you really just can't stand it and you feel useless then get out of those wet clothes and make sure I don't crack my skull on the porcelain."

 

The only thing you could really feel was a strange sadness. You tucked it away quickly, instead deciding to just enjoy that you were back in his presence for at least a little while longer. At least until you had to ship off to the shiny new Mother Base waiting on you in Seychelles, but you didn't want to think about that yet.

 

Ocelot fell asleep on his bed still wrapped in his towel. The TV seemed to be his weakness; all you had to do was turn the channel to whatever western was on and he'd drop like a sack of potatoes. It was always sort of endearing in a weird way but not then, not when you could see the blooming needle tracks on his arms, not when you could see each individual rib straining against his skin. He was an absolute wreck like you'd never seen before and your heart hurt because you knew somehow this was all for Snake.

 

Big Boss was not worth his suffering, but you knew there was no way in hell you could show him that unless he learned for himself. 

 

You settled in beside him for the night, tucking your head beneath his chin so that you could listen to him breathe and make sure his heart didn't stop in the middle of the night. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a little dialogue heavy. But it had to happen. Hope you enjoy!


	5. Five

Ocelot had been on radio silence for _weeks_. After the first two, you stopped counting. When Miller was captured, you stopped caring. You didn't have time to. Whatever he was doing, somewhere out there with Snake, did not concern you and you trusted he would reappear when he needed to. He always had. 

 

Lead after lead on Miller came back empty. Mother Base immediately began to feel the pressure of his absence; you were not a comparable stand-in, and you knew this, but you were the last line of defense. You weren't sure what to do with his budgeting paperwork or where to route resources to. You had no clue how to manage anything he'd left behind. The longer it took to locate him, the more you felt yourself begin to buckle and the men felt it too. 

 

You spent almost all of your time with Intel combing tapes and location data until you thought your eyes were going to burn out of their sockets and your ears were sore from clamping headphones against them. You slept only when you absolutely could not stay awake any longer, and if that meant slumping over at your desk, that was fine. Someone would always wake you and offer to take you back to your quarters but as soon as you were jostled awake again, you were going to work until your body failed. 

 

When Ocelot's voice crackled over the radio in the middle of the night, you were certain you were hallucinating. It took several seconds to realize he was calling for you and even then you weren't sure if it was real or if you were having painfully vivid flashbacks from the LSD you'd dropped with Miller in Thailand.

 

"Serval, I need a few things. You listening?" he asked. You scrambled for the radio, tripping over everything between your desk and the receiver.

 

"I'm here. What is it?"

 

"God, I missed your voice." You were glad the radio was push-to-talk; he couldn't hear you sigh over that _phrasing_. "Alright. I'm not far out. I need you to set a code on my door, first of all. Then head over to Medical and get me an IV rig. I need to...flush this garbage out of my system."

 

"What garbage?" you asked, quickly peering over your shoulder to make sure you were alone. "Opioid? Benzo? What are you still taking?"

 

"Serval."

 

Right. You weren’t supposed to know. _For your own good_. 

 

"I’m going to taper off. It’ll be a process. But promise me you’ll have everything ready," he said, and you could hear how tired he was just through his voice. "It’ll be a while before Snake gets in. We’ll talk about that when I get there."

 

"I’ll have it done," you told him. "Anything else you can think of?"

 

"A pony and a million dollars."

 

"Bag of peppermints acceptable?"

 

"I’ll take it."

 

* * *

Ocelot slept until the day Snake returned with a battered Kazuhira in tow. You were happy to see him again, happy to just be _in his presence_ again, but you were also extremely glad that he slept instead of trying to mop up Mother Base. 

 

You kept up his morning routine out of habit, presenting him with a cup of black coffee every daybreak even if it went untouched. Breakfast was made and served regardless of whether or not he could keep it down. The one day you had some downtime, you took his duffel bag of clothes to have a guy in the uniform department dry-clean and press everything, including an unfamiliar buckskin shirt you figured he'd picked up before he left Cyprus. When his new white Andalusian was fultoned in, you laughed. You couldn't imagine how much money the horse had cost or where he'd got his hands on it. 

 

Telling him that Snake was coming, however, did not earn the reaction you expected. 

 

You weren't particularly sure what you expected in the first place, but his blank stare was not it. Maybe you wanted him to perk up or look a little...happy? Was that the right word? At the very least, show a little interest that his friend/lover/idol or _whatever_  was coming back mostly unscathed. 

 

Instead, he asked you to help him shower and get dressed as if it was just another day. A fresh shave and his new outfit had him looking almost good as new, save the dark circles beneath his eyes and cheekbones that threatened to tear through his pale skin. You didn't want to think about how much weight he'd lost. 

 

Miller was immediately rushed off to Medical for emergency surgery. You didn't get a look at him from behind Ocelot, settling for sitting in on Snake's briefing when Medical told you he would be under anesthesia for several hours. "Bad shape" was always an understatement and you feared the worst until Snake assured Ocelot that Miller had been awake and sentient the whole way back, just missing most of an arm and part of a leg. 

 

And then there was Snake. _The Legendary Soldier_ , in all his...quiet, placid glory. Not at all how you imagined. Definitely not how you pictured him interacting with Ocelot, or vice versa. 

 

From the ways Ocelot had waxed poetic about him, you had always imagined their relationship to be much more intimate than Ocelot silently orbiting him and asking him blunt, analytical questions. You didn't like how distant Snake seemed, or how indecisive he tended to be. In fact, you just _didn't like him at all_ because every time you caught a glimpse of his shimmering blue eye, something twisted deep in the pit of your gut. The muffled alarms that you'd forgotten about began to ring again, subdued like a church bell on a foggy day. 

 

Instead of dismissing the bells, you listened to them. What was it about him that set them off? Even after all this time, after so many years spent with Ocelot rebuilding the intricate little pathways between your busted emotions, you still couldn't identify fear as a whole but you could dismantle the symptoms.

 

That twist in your guts only came when you were face-to-face, eye-to-eye with him. There was a wrongness about him. The softness in his gaze was a facade, very poorly masking the  _turmoil_  raging inside him, boiling and frothing like the wake behind a ship. It became obvious that Ocelot was avoiding his company because it was contagious like a sort of flu. The longer you were near Snake, the more you felt as if you were being dragged beneath the waters in his undertow. 

 

The other symptoms were easy to figure out. He was a monster of a man, easily twice your size, and it was no wonder your natural response was to want to shy away from him. The nauseating chill was chalked up to having to look at the shrapnel jutting out of his forehead. 

 

When Miller came out of surgery, it was as if Ocelot didn't exist. Snake went straight to Medical without a word but surprisingly, Ocelot seemed unruffled. 

 

Or at least he did until you made it back to your quarters for the night. He went straight to his own room, lost in thought, but you didn't hear the lock engage when he shut his door. That usually meant he'd forgotten something and hadn't realized it yet. After about thirty minutes of tossing and turning in your own bunk, you heard his spurs rattle across the hallway and you knew what he'd forgotten. 

 

You.

 

"I don't trust anyone here yet," he mumbled, and his story was flimsy. You didn't try to hide the grin that came with your little victory. "Not with Miller back on base."

 

"I thought you two were okay?"

 

"Serval, he was already paranoid. You think he could even _remotely_ come out of this and not be a babbling mess? I'll be his first target."

 

You helped him out of his holsters and bandolier, ushering him into his bunk before his tired ranting had him too strung out to lie down. You'd lived through several 2AM Ocelot orations and none of them had ever ended in any sort of peaceful rest. 

 

"He won't go for you," he continued, patting the bunk beside him. "I think he still likes you, maybe just a little bit. He's always hated me though, so I'll be the first suspect."

 

"Suspect of what? What does he have to be suspicious of?"

 

"Literally anything. He was on the way to get payback on an old MSF connection when he got captured. He'll want to blame the capture on somebody."

 

"You weren't even here. You were in Cyprus." You flopped down beside him, tucking a pistol beneath your pillow out of habit. "Or does that make it worse?"

 

"I think that just makes it worse, honestly. Do you think you can talk to him tomorrow? See what page he's on?"

 

"I suppose. I wanted to ask you about Snake, though."

 

He froze, blinking at you across the pillows as if you'd just blinded him.

 

"Ask me about Snake," he echoed, more to himself than you.

 

"Yeah. Is he...?" you started, pointing to your forehead for emphasis. "Is he hitting on all 8 cylinders up there?"

 

"Definitely. He's fine."

 

"Doesn't seem fine."

 

"9 years in a coma can change a man."

 

"Which man? Him or you?" you blurted. You hadn't meant for that to come out but there it was, out in the open, and the way Ocelot's eyes narrowed at you made you feel 2 inches tall. 

 

"What do you mean?" he shot back.

 

"You know what I mean."

 

He did know, but you knew he would not admit it if his life depended on it. He knew how hard he'd aged and how tame he'd become. 40 looked fantastic on him, but not when he was starved and over-medicated. 

 

"You loved him. What happened?" you pressed, edging a little closer to him. "Do you get that same...feeling I get around him?"

 

"I did. And _god only knows_ I'm happy to have him back. I'm happy that he's even alive. But that's not the legend I fell in love with. I look at him and it's like I'm looking at a reversed picture. He's all there, he looks like him, walks like him, sounds like him but there's just _something_ wrong and I hate it. I fucking hate it. I _slaved_ over him for a decade and he won't even look me in the eyes when we speak. I put so many plans on hold, I put you on hold, I--... Serval, we could have had the entire world in our hands if I hadn't stopped everything to dote on a **_thankless comatose shell_**."

 

You didn't jump when his fist hit the metal wall, or when he let out a scream that made your ears ring. He sat up to catch his breath, his fingers woven so tightly into his hair that you worried he was going to pull every single strand out. 

 

"I don't know what I've done," he said softly, his voice breaking in a way that you had never heard. "I remember getting him out of the hospital. And getting to the ship and the desert but when I try to think past that my skull _itches._ Everywhere he should be is just a blank space."

 

Something clicked in the back of your head. All the drugs, the new clothes, the new pistols. He was rewriting himself. This whole new identity was one that did not involve Snake, and the last little pieces of Ocelot that still wanted to hold onto him were finally coming undone. 

 

"We'll work on it," you told him, gently pulling him back down. "We'll figure it out. We always do."

 

"We do. You're right." He drew a shaky breath, fumbling for your hand beneath the blankets. It shocked you when he pressed your palm against his cheek, subtly tilting his head up to your touch when you let your thumb stroke along the side of his face. "Sometimes I wish it was just me and you again."

 

"Me too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, I'm sorry I took so long to produce this garbage fire. I'm probably going to retcon this thing when I get a chance but I felt like I had to get something out there. Thanks for sticking with me.


	6. Six

Gradually, Ocelot's drug-addled psyche began to settle somewhere close to an even keel. At the same rate, Miller's deteriorated. 

 

Ocelot never brought up that night again and sometimes you wondered if he even remembered it. Mornings were back to your familiar routine; wake up, shower, breakfast with Ocelot. He'd fix your scarf and you'd straighten his bandolier and go about your days as if Diamond Dogs had always been home. 

 

Miller rarely appeared outside of R&D. If he did decide to shuffle outside, it was likely because you'd done something _unsatisfactory_ and he'd come to rake you over the coals for it. Of course it was always your fault. Why wouldn't it be? You were the one who left him for dead out in the desert, according to him, and had Snake not come along at just the right time, he was certain he would have been "buzzard food out in a goddamn canyon". No credit to Ocelot, and certainly none to you for overseeing the entire base in his absence. 

 

He was slightly more accommodating to you than he was to Ocelot. You figured he took out his frustrations on you first because he knew Ocelot would retaliate in ways he wasn't prepared for. He definitely still had a soft spot for you, but that also meant you were the first person who came to mind when he was looking for someone to blame. 

 

You took it in stride. A box of Lucky Strikes was easy to come by and even though they were technically contraband, you would still slither into his office and slip them into his jacket pocket when you knew he was having a hard time. It was the only friendly gesture you could think of that wouldn't net you a tongue-lashing from hell, and _not_ the kind you'd received from him back in Russia. 

 

A few weeks of warming back up to him earned you a special closed-off hangar bay. He offered to have it set up for you and Ocelot if you'd stop sucking up with shitty cigarettes. 

 

Ocelot was enthralled with his new room. It was stark, empty, and pitch black without the aid of a red lamp he snagged from somewhere deep in the bowels of Mother Base. A plain metal chair and a boombox were his only necessities. The two-way mirror was just an added bonus. 

 

Unless Snake was out in the field, Ocelot was in Room 101 with you. Anyone who had the misfortune of landing in your little metal chair came out a changed person, for better or for worse. Either they would comply and make it out _minimally_ scarred or they would resist until Ocelot had completely rearranged the folds in their grey-matter. 

 

You were jaded to the process. You didn't remember much of what had happened to you before Ocelot had found you, but at the same time, you couldn't sympathize with soldiers who wouldn't comply over the silliest of reasons. In your eyes, their country had abandoned them. Why hold any of its secrets at all if you knew not a single person was looking for you? Or even cared to give you a name rather than a number? Russia had forgotten you. Ocelot had given you a real name, a real purpose, and you wondered sometimes if any of the men who passed through your little hidden room would respond positively if you did the same for them.

 

You suggested this to Ocelot. The new Ocelot Unit was born a day later, though you didn't call it that. Not in front of the rest of Mother Base. For quite some time, your private little army was indistinguishable from the others save their aversion to "Hooked on a Feeling" by Blue Swede. Ocelot was prone to copying Pequod's mix tapes; a close flyby with Pequod blasting it over his radio usually sent Ocelot Unit scrambling while the other men stood confused. None of them were aware that it was always the first song when Ocelot started up the boombox. 

 

A fresh crate of black uniforms slipped under Miller's nose. Another crate full of red berets came soon after that, and then another filled with balaclavas. Ocelot Unit simply _appeared_ one day, all dressed in their shiny new outfits, and Miller nearly had an aneurysm. 

 

When little yellow ascots began to appear on the other men, Ocelot laughed. Miller was platforms away in his own high castle and yet he sent his men to scope out Intel as if to make some sort of statement. Maybe even just to show off _their_ special uniforms, like a high school clique.

 

Ocelot Unit proved to be far more handy than anyone anticipated, especially Miller, but he would never admit it. When the sniper was brought back to base, it took a snap of Ocelot's fingers to have his men trained on her. They didn't flinch. They didn't so much as touch their triggers. Even with Miller shouting from behind them to shoot, they stood silent, waiting for Ocelot's commands. 

 

They were no substitute for you, that much was certain. They flinched. They knew true fear. You could see it in their eyes when she disappeared the first time. And yet they followed you respectfully when you lead her to her cell in Medical, without question, without hesitation, even though you knew one of them was shaking so hard that the magazine in his rifle rattled behind you. 

 

You were proud of them. It felt nice, but it felt even better that Ocelot was proud of you for the idea. Little gifts began to appear at the door of your room in the evenings, mostly obscure odds and ends, but a new pair of officer's boots and a soft telnyashka tank brought a heat to your cheeks that you hadn't felt in quite some time. 

 

One morning, instead of a scarf, he tied a red bandana around your neck neatly. He didn't offer you a uniform jacket, grumbling something about it being too hot for those kinds of outfits. The Seychelles sun burned on the tops of your shoulders but you had to admit, you felt pretty slick in your new getup, especially since he'd let you ditch the puffy Spetznaz pants for a pair of black jeans that tucked neatly into your boots. 

 

Just as you began to feel better about this new life, Snake reappeared, soaked in blood and gore. Your mood went down the shower drain with his days-old grime. 

 

You hated the way he _coddled_ Miller. And, if you were being honest, you knew Miller hated it just as much but it was Snake, there was no way on earth that he'd ever tell him no. Not when he was finally getting the attention you knew he wanted. All that talk about how he'd moved on, how he didn't have time to love a man in a hospital was a bluff. He was as in love with Snake as he always had been. You could see it in the way they spoke, the way he leaned into Venom's steadying touch. Ocelot pretended not to notice, but he couldn't hide his distaste of Snake cradling another man's face in front of him. 

 

It took longer than it should have for Ocelot to really shake himself of Snake. The sniper kept his attention for a while until he finally decided she wasn't a threat, but even she was pining over Venom from her joke of a prison cell. There were some days that Ocelot would roll his eyes at her and give up for the day. On others, he would let it roll off as if it wasn't happening. 

 

You wondered sometimes if he would finally see you when Snake was purged from his brain. If he would understand your affections, or if it would change your relationship at all. 

 

There were days you could tell he was thinking the same thing. He would hesitate as he straightened your bandana. He'd skim the slopes of your cheek with the backs of his fingers, watching his red gloves color your face with a blush that would have been embarrassing if you could parse that emotion correctly. Subtle actions, but their impact left you dazed for hours at a time and you wanted to hate him for toying with you. 

 

_He has to know_ , you told yourself. _There's no way he's still oblivious_. 

 

You were mostly right.

 

* * *

The storm rolling into Seychelles waters was no joke. You'd tracked it for days and ultimately decided to shut the base down until it blew through. Crews were scrambled, equipment was locked down, and by nightfall you had everything ready for a couple days' worth of storm weather. Ocelot asked you to stop by the cafeteria for extra water and a few sets of batteries just in case the power cut out, but you weren't sure why he wanted you back in such a hurry. 

 

By the time you made it back to his quarters, the rain had started. It was soft, just enough to hear from inside his room, and you realized how long it had been since you'd seen rain or heard thunder. 

 

"It's nice," he said quietly. "I always liked the rain."

 

"I thought I might never see it again out here," you told him. "It seems like the sun is so close to the earth. Like you could reach up and grab it."

 

He chuckled, pausing at his desk to carefully measure something into an amber vial. His desk was unusually messy, littered with bottles and vials and a little roll of perforated paper. Curiosity got the best of you and you paused to skim the labels, puzzled when there weren't any definitive names. Just vague abbreviations.

 

"You wanna try this?" he asked, leaning back against his desk as he shook the vial. "I will if you will."

 

"What is it?"

 

"That takes the fun out of it."

 

You couldn't say no to that. 

 

"Fine," you huffed. "But if I die, that's on you."

 

"Look, I know what it is. I'm not going to give you too much--"

 

"And you're taking it too? That doesn't seem super smart."

 

"Just trust me on this one, Serval," he mumbled, reaching for a dropper. "Come here."

 

You wanted to balk when he pulled you close. Closer than usual, so close that your hands closed around his bandolier nervously. 

 

"Close your eyes. And don't try to cheat, it doesn't have a smell," he continued. "Go on. Close 'em."

 

You did. You didn't like it but you did it anyway, flinching when his gloved hand curled around your chin. You could feel him reach for something on the desk, his thumb pressing into your lips to part them, and then his mouth was on yours and you weren't sure what to do. 

 

His hand twisted tightly into the front of your shirt, the bitter taste of an unfamiliar drug on his tongue. It made the inside of your mouth numb, prickly like the way you imagined static on a TV would feel if you could touch it. Was it mint-flavored? Or was that just...him?

 

_Him_. Peppermint and black coffee. The smell of salt air and sunshine, gun oil, boot polish. The creak of leather holsters as you leaned into him, dissolving against his chest when his kiss softened. It felt as if his fingers were wrapped around your heart instead of threaded into your shirt, squeezing, burning the breath from your lungs.

 

You wanted to say something. Anything. Maybe ask him why, or what changed, but breaking away from him to meet his blue-grey eyes didn't help. 

 

" _We'll talk it out later_ ," he said lowly, lapsing into Russian, and you weren't sure if the heat that swept over you was from the drug or from the coarseness in his voice. 

 

The whole world seemed dreamlike. Suspended in time, stifled by the growing storm. Even the lightning seemed slower somehow, and when it flashed it shimmered across Ocelot’s skin and silver hair. He whispered to you as you tangled beneath his sheets, soft little apologies that you never could quite make out over the thunder and your own gasps. Even if you could hear, you wouldn't have been paying attention; you were too busy tracing his feathery scars, marveling at the concept of touching him this intimately without needing to stitch a wound.

 

For the first time, you fell asleep tucked into his side, your head on his chest and his revolvers holstered beneath the bed.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for sticking with me. buckle up cuz next chapter is going to get rough, and i apologize for the super slow update.


	7. Seven

Mornings became a quiet, intimate space that felt as if Ocelot’s quarters were on their own island floating somewhere off in the ocean. It was peaceful, at least until morning reveille, but even then there was no urgency. No rush to get out of his warm bed when there were a few spare moments to lay across his chest and listen to him grumble about what needed to be done first that morning. 

On the surface, nothing changed. Not a single soul expected to ever see Ocelot without Serval or vice versa, so it was easy to keep up at least some air of normality. No one had to know how his gunslinger’s hands roamed over you at night or about the little purplish watercolor marks beneath your bandana. 

Days passed by a little easier. Nights dragged on and on but in a pleasant way. Some nights he’d slip you something to help you sleep; others he would have you strung out higher than a kite with the radio blaring, ranting to you about conspiracy theories until he couldn’t breathe. Things he’d held in for years were bubbling to the surface one at a time and occasionally he’d let something vital slip, something a little darker than usual, but all it took was another dose or another kiss to right himself. 

It made the first few punches a little easier. Mother Base rolled with Huey, chewing him up and spitting him back out as if nothing had ever happened. Quiet was easy to deal with once you got past her inconvenient party tricks, and the angry band of child soldiers were manageable even with Eli and his floating friend. 

To you, things felt fine, but you could sense unease spreading across the platforms like a slow rot. As if the girders and steel beneath your feet would rust and crumble into the ocean. Even Ocelot was anxious but he couldn't place why; you watched him begin to toss and turn at night, disturbing the deep sleeps you'd gotten used to at his side. 

You realized far too late that Snake was the source of the disquiet. You'd spent very little time with him, avoiding him out of your own distaste for his brooding demeanor, but watching him step off the helicopter and back onto Mother Base explained everything. 

Whatever emotion he brought back with him from the field would immediately begin to creep its way across the platform and up Miller's tired, impressionable body. It used Miller as a conduit, radiating out from him and to the soldiers nearest him until the unrest had completely enveloped everything on Mother Base but you and Ocelot. 

Some days, you could feel it sticking to the soles of your boots. It was a strange feeling, very foreign to you, and you did everything in your power to shake it the moment that you felt it stir. 

You took it upon yourself to talk to Miller, hoping that you could talk him into opening up about Snake. Anything would be enlightening considering the current situation, but when you cornered Miller in his office late one evening, he bristled immediately. 

"Unless you need something, I really don't want to see your face right now," Miller said lowly, peering up at you over the edge of his mirrored sunglasses. 

"I do need something. Not here to suck up," you tried. "Look. I don't even have a pack of cigarettes."

"I don't really want to talk, either."

"But we need to."

He sighed hard, pulling his glasses off to rub his eyes. You hadn't seen his milky blue eyes in so long that they were almost startling, especially in the light of the desk lamp. 

"Spit it out, then. I'm tired," he said. "Don't have all night."

"What is it that bothers you about Snake? About me?"

"I said spit it out, not 'hit me with a right hook'. What kind of question is that, Serval?"

"An honest one," you said simply. "You used to like me. You still liked me even after Russia. But I think about what you said that morning all the time."

"I said what I meant. You're Ocelot with a new hide. There are...things about you that are fantastic but I can't help but wonder if they're real, like really your own developed personality or if it's just something Ocelot programmed you to do. Did he manufacture you to be likable?"

You couldn't answer him.

"You don't know, do you?" Miller pressed. "You really don't fucking know. Think about the things you like that he doesn't like. How far removed are they? Because I guarantee you, whatever he did to you, those things really aren't that far removed from one another. It's like he just ran out of ideas and fudged it a little to fill in the gaps. Like running out of paint and scraping it off other places to try and stretch it. Sure, it works when you aren't aware of it, but when you start to catch on, it's a little more than fucked up. And I caught on precisely in that moment because _you're both the same lay_."

Jealousy, you learned, was a vicious and searing emotion. Co-morbid with anger. It was a heat that started at the base of your neck and spread like a low-burning fire, all embers, until you could feel your face turn as red as your bandana. 

"You both are masters at scrambling brains, which is also something I think about daily. I don't trust either of you not to have your little hands in everyone's skulls at any given time. You're both very helpful, you're hard working, real assets here but how do I know you're not just manipulating me--"

"You're paranoid. That is pure, unbridled paranoia," you scoffed. "Do you think we're psychic? What we do isn't _manipulation_ , either, so you can stop that shit right now. As for me? You don't know where I was before he found me. You don't know what I went through. Neither did I, because I literally lost _myself_ out there. I came out of that prison as nothing. I was a person before. A person with a life and maybe a family or a career and the fact that I am even functional as a basic human being is a miracle in itself. If part of my brain overlaps with his, then so be it. He could have left me to die."

"You ever think maybe he should have? Because living life as his first experiment seems awfully shitty to me. You are nothing but his shadow, and if you keep this up, if you don't get away from him, he's going to ruin you just like he did Snake. You want to know what bothers me about Snake? Everything that Ocelot did to him over those nine goddamn years. He's not the same man. He's all fucked up in the head, just like you. Parroting things that Ocelot says even though he never sees either of you. He acts like you. His emotions are all jumbled and wrong and he's not John. He's barely a human, but that's what Ocelot is good at is absolutely destroying any ounce of humanity left in someone."

"And you have no idea how much he slaved over trying to _salvage_ Snake. You keep calling us broken--"

"Because you are. Because everyone Ocelot touches comes away broken somehow. Not just a little broken, permanently damaged. Look at Ocelot Unit. _They're scared of the radio_."

"And you're still fucking the man you can't stand to be around! How can you sit here and tell me that you don't like me but you'll go to bed at night with someone you say is just like me? What sense does that make? You gave me such a good speech back in Korea about not slaving over someone who--"

"I didn't know what I was talking about. I still don't. Don't think it doesn't haunt me every night, Serval," he growled, and for the first time you realized that both of you were leaning into the conversation across his desk. "I remember what I said. Trying to act like him being gone didn't bother me. I was grieving, Serval, because I never thought he'd come back."

"Do you love him?"

"Him. Not...what came back from Cyprus. Maybe I'm just a masochist like you."

He was close enough that you could have grabbed the back of his head and put it straight through his slick wooden desk; it took every ounce of restraint in you to stop yourself from doing just that. 

"I think your relationship is a different level of depravity," he continued, very slowly bringing his hand up so that you could see it was empty. You balked when he reached for your face, avoiding his touch, but instead he went for your bandana. "There's something really, really disgusting about it that I can't put my finger on."

You knew the gig was up as you let him slide your bandana down your neck. He huffed, stifling a mocking laugh. 

"If you want to be dramatic about it, it's kind of like God fucking Adam. Except, in this case, Adam thinks he's God, but it's the premise of creator fucking creation that just ruins it all for me. I guess it makes sense, though," he said lowly, and you flinched at his fingertips dragging across the newest marks on your skin. "I always said he was a narcissist. That word wasn't strong enough. So it's only natural that he'd bang something in his image."

"When did you figure it out? Just out of curiosity."

"When he bought you that bandana. That was an easy tip. _I know where he bites_."

"He gave that to me before."

 

"You don't think he planned that out ahead of time? You're not above his schemes. You're not above anything he does. If you think he's not already brainwashing you somehow, you're absolutely dense. There's gotta be something. The radio. A lamp. Drugs. You just haven't noticed it but when you do, it'll be too late and--"

Both of you flinched when emergency alarms cut through the hallways. The lights dimmed and you could see the orange glow of the hazard lights flashing through the crack in his door.

His iDroid flickered to life on his desk. "I'm calling a quarantine!" Ocelot shouted, his voice rattling the tinny speaker. "Get your non-essentials rounded up in the cafeteria. I want a head count. Everybody else--"

"What's going on?" Miller countered.

"Parasites. I--...get Snake back here. Now."

 


	8. Eight

"Shit hit the fan" was not even remotely strong enough to describe the situation at hand.

 

Snake was having an existential come-apart in his quarters. Men were dead -- lots of them -- and there was a gaping hole in Room 101. Most notably, Sahelanthropus was gone; you hadn't really been involved with it in particular, but the blow was large enough to bring Mother Base to a grinding halt.

 

Ocelot sat dazed on the edge of his desk, nursing a burn on the back of his arm. Had he been three steps back from his usual place in Room 101, you imagined he'd be dead. You were lucky enough to have left with only a shallow scatter of shrapnel beneath your skin, speckling the right side of your face much like your namesake.

 

Lucky, but you hated the irony of it.

 

All of it had happened so quickly. There were still ashes on your shirt and bandana from the little face-painting stunt Snake had pulled with his comrade's ashes; the wind dusted you thoroughly when he peeled back the lid of the urn like a Folger's can. 

 

The implied trauma of being sprinkled with human ashes was lost on you. Ocelot made a half-hearted attempt to shake out your bandana but you shrugged him off, insisting that you'd shower after you looked at his still-fresh burn.

 

"How long has it been?" he asked quietly, pulling at one of his gloves with his teeth. 

 

"Since when?"

 

"Since I came back from Cyprus."

 

"I have no clue," you mumbled. You slipped his glove off for him, swatting his hand away when he reached for his own bandage. "I couldn't even tell you what day it is. Or how long it's been since Eli escaped."

 

He let his gaze settle on something distant, unmoving and silent as you did your best to debride the burn. There were still pieces of buckskin shirt melted into the very edges that you hoped would scab, and blisters had formed up and across his shoulder that you didn't dare touch. All of it, you knew, would scar. But that wasn't anything new for him. 

 

"What are you thinking about so hard?" you asked. He didn't flinch, even when you had to dig at a stray piece of dying tissue. 

 

"I don't know. I feel like I should know. Like this is an important day or time but it's just...missing."

 

"Like how you felt when you came back. Is that why you were asking?"

 

He didn't answer. He groused at you for wrapping his gauze too tightly, but there was no bite to his tone. 

 

You tried not to overthink it. The faint swirls of bone-grey and flecks of black that slithered down the shower drain were enough of a distraction; you wondered if, by some strange twist of fate, the ocean would eventually drift the ashes back to their homeland or if they would fall to the deep abyss to be consumed with whale carcasses and lagan. 

 

It was a thought that made you feel distant from your own body, as if you were hovering just above the shower itself, watching the body as it stared at the drain of a foreign volition. The faint flicker of the bathroom light was rhythmic enough to exacerbate the feeling until you weren't sure that the body in the shower was even your own.

 

After all, it was such a strange body. Pock-marked with scars, lined with faded cuts and near-misses of varying calibers. You didn't know how it came into being, or why. Just that it was supposedly yours, your little shell, pasted so delicately back together by Ocelot's careful hands.

 

"Would you believe it's almost midnight?" he asked suddenly, and the unexpected intrusion made you painfully aware of how hot the water had gotten. "We need to sleep. I want to get a shower but I don't want to ruin your dressing."

 

"We'll get you one in the morning when I change it again. It could use a hot rinse."

 

You could hear him wiping the fog from the bathroom mirror and murmuring to himself, obviously having slipped out of his funk just as quickly as it had settled in. 

 

"I need you to be honest about something," you started, fighting a shiver when you cut the shower off. "And I know this is probably too far. But...before all this, when I was talking to Miller..."

 

"Yes?"

 

You paused, mulling over your words as you watched him preen. Everything in you was bursting at the seams, begging for information or confirmation or something, anything, and yet your brain was fixated on the dimples at his lower back. So perfectly placed that they made you wonder if it was the cut of his jeans or just genetics. It was almost an internal betrayal, one half of your brain silencing the other. 

 

"Did you...make me like you? Make me similar to you?" you continued.

 

"In what way?"

 

"The way I act, the things that interest me. This...thing we're doing."

 

"I encouraged certain behaviors, if that's what you're asking. But no, I didn't force you to be anything. Have you ever felt forced?" he asked, turning to lean against the counter. "Have I ever handed you a book and told you to enjoy it or leave?"

 

"No."

 

"We just happened to work so well together that I couldn't let it go. The fact that we have quite literally never been separated until recently has had some bearing on your preferences, I'm sure. When you're around someone for as long as we've been together you sort of start to absorb each other."

 

"Then why aren't you more like me? Why is it always me that gets put under the magnifying glass?"

 

He scoffed, pulling you closer by the front of your towel. Part of you wanted to spend the rest of the night exploring his sharp collarbones as you were then, your fingertips slipping between scars and freckles to follow what little un-marred skin there was. 

 

"Why this? Why let it go this far?" you asked. 

 

“Creature comforts, maybe? It works.”

 

"Are you using me, Ocelot?"

 

For a split second, you thought that you'd finally pushed too far. That this was it, this was the night he'd kill you for prodding, as his hand drifted up over the base of your neck a little too tightly. You were ready — you didn't move. 

 

"What did Kaz say to you?" he asked, his voice barely above a deep rumble. He threaded his fingers through the back of your too-long hair, tilting your face into his so that his nose brushed alongside yours. "Did he give you the sob story? About how it hurts his feelings that everyone goes out of their way to be nice to him?"

 

"He says I'm you. You but scrapped together with a different skin," you answered. "He says that Venom and I both are just busted experiments."

 

"And you've let his little playground fighting words poison your thoughts, hmm? These past few days, we've witnessed some of the most disgusting atrocities of war and you're still hung up on something he said in the middle of a tantrum?"

 

You didn't know how to answer, not verbally. Ocelot knew what you'd say anyway and you settled for rubbing your thumbs over his sharp hipbones when words wouldn't come. Each little circle of your thumb brought about a new thought, like watching bullets rotate through the chamber of a revolver but you weren't pulling the trigger; empty threats, like the sudden visceral feeling of wanting to kill you both right then and there with a well-placed shot through the back of his skull.

 

An easy solution, if you could reach around him fast enough for his holster on the bathroom counter, but the thought was there and gone like a hot flash of magnesium. The next circle of your thumbs made you notice how subtly he canted his hips to you and you marveled at the idea that you had some little iota of power over him, primitive and simple though it was. 

 

But that was the thing about Ocelot. There was truly no way of telling whether or not any of his reaction was manufactured. Even the slight tinge of pink across his collarbones, or the way his even breathing stuttered when you brushed your lips along his jawline. It was a wounding thought but you knew he catalogued every single little interaction between the two of you, even so slight as this, and his responses to you were measured even if they weren't meant to be. 

 

"No answer?" he pressed, only tentatively meeting your searching lips. "You just gonna stand there and gawk over me all evening?"

 

"I don't really know what to say when you're always right," you admitted.

 

You relished the little sound he made when you dipped your thumbs beneath his jeans, inching them lower as you leaned into his kiss. 

 

"You know I love the attention but sometimes I really don't know what's going on in your skull," he continued. "I can guess. But I don't understand the course of this conversation."

 

"Me either. Guess I just don't wanna think about things too hard."

 

"So when the going gets tough, your answer is fuck?"

 

"Learned it from the master."

 

* * *

 

You weren't sure how long you had been awake, but the soft chirp from your iDroid jarred you out of your hazy afterglow. You saw it pulsing red beneath the edge of the bed and kicked yourself for not plugging it in, slowly untangling yourself from Ocelot to make a grab for it. 

 

It beeped angrily when you tried to pull up your messages, presenting you with nothing but static. You gave it a shake, flipping the toggle back and forth, but the projection remained snowy even after you slotted it into the charger on Ocelot's footlocker. 

 

His was no different. The battery indicator was green but his screen was just as staticky.

 

Interference was something you'd seen before and it was not this; at the most, it caused distorted audio on playback. This, you decided, had to be a jammer, and it had to be close.

 

You fumbled with both iDroids until you were absolutely sure they were in working condition, trying to kick your sleep-addled brain into gear, and in your rush you almost didn't hear the quiet pecking of keys at the door. 

 

tick. tick. tick. tick. 

 

The keypad buzzed, muffled on the other side of the door, and you froze. 

 

tick. tick. tick. tick. 

 

Before it could buzz again you had Ocelot's revolver in your hand, sights leveled on the door. But there was no buzz. Instead, the lock disengaged and the door began to swing open.

 

"Adam?"

 

Ocelot stirred behind you, bleary-eyed. 

 

"Boss?" you echoed. The laugh from the other side of the door was not what you expected. "Open it all the way or I drop this hammer."

 

The hulk in the door was Snake as much as he wasn't. The face was mostly right, the eyepatch was on the correct side, but you'd seen Snake stand in that vary doorway before and his head had nearly hit the door frame. You couldn't imagine he'd lose five inches of height overnight or that he'd suddenly discovered a way to remove the mountainous shrapnel from his forehead.

 

There were no alarms, though. No warnings rattling around in the back of your head as he shut the door behind him and turned on the desk lamp. He was calm, collected. You still kept your sights trained on him as he began to root through Ocelot's desk drawers. 

 

"I'm about to say a string of words and Ocelot is gonna hit the bed like a sack of bricks," the man said slowly. He fished a cigar out of his shirt pocket. "I need you to stay calm."

 

You glanced behind you at Ocelot. He'd been silent the entire time, blank, his hand wound so tightly into the top sheet that his knuckles were white. There were gears turning somewhere in his brain but they were slipping and grinding.

 

Several French words that you didn't recognize rattled out of the stranger's mouth as he lit his cigar and, as he promised, Ocelot dropped like a rag doll behind you. For a moment, you felt your aim waver. You kept the glowing red cherry of his cigar between the rear sights of the revolver for as long as you could before you realized exactly who he was.

 

"You're John," you mumbled. "The Big Boss."

 

"He'll wake up in about an hour."

 

"I want answers."

 

"And I don't owe you any. I should kill you where you lay but I don't want to make a mess in his bunk. Don't raise that revolver back up, either. You won't shoot me and you know it."

 

The smoke from his cigar hung like cobwebs in the dim light. It was a sickly sweet smell that you wanted to dislike but couldn't; something minty and familiar.

 

"Here's your options," Snake continued, producing Ocelot's tape recorder from his desk drawers. "I run you a good concoction of whatever he's got stashed in his medicine bag and you forget this ever happened. You wake up in the officer's quarters and resume your every day life. Otherwise, you'll follow me out to the backside of this platform and I'll put you down quick and painless, one 9 mil to the back of your skull."

 

"Neither," you said simply. 

 

Snake paused, his one blue eye gleaming at you even through the smoky dark.

 

"Bold," he mumbled. "But those are the options."

 

"I take it you've never heard about me?"

 

"A spring break tryst? No, he didn't. Do you think you're special? Getting laid by Shalashaska? Did you rope him in with your sharpshooting skills and a bump of cocaine?"

 

"Did you?"

 

"Spit it out before your brains paint that back wall."

 

"I've been with him since his first years in Afghanistan. Every single day. I am not an officer,I am Serval, and if you kill me you're cutting off one hand just to spite the other," you said, with more bravado than you intended. "I have watched him dismantle his own mind from the inside out for the past decade for you and if you think I'm not going to ask questions, you're just as dense as you always sounded."

 

"That's all well and good, but again, I don't owe you answers. You wanna tell me why you're in his bed?"

 

"I don't owe you answers, either."

 

"Oh, but you do. You really do, especially in this particular area," he growled, motioning at the bed with his cigar. 

 

"Why, because you think he's yours? I saw how he reacted to Venom. I watched him rip it all out like old stitches. You can't keep killing yourself over someone who doesn't give you the time of day."

 

"Except that was part of this character that he's been playing, and when he comes around, it'll be just like old times. This was a recent development, right? He never laid a finger on you until I was out of his system entirely. I'd place all my money and his on it."

 

"And you wouldn't be wrong, but I feel like we're focused on the wrong thing here," you shot back. "Or not really focusing on it at all, really. I'm essential to him. He's essential to you. I feel like it goes without saying that I would also be useful to you, should you let me in on whatever it is you're doing. Personal feelings aside."

 

He hummed to himself, taking a long drag from his cigar. "You say that, but what are you going to do when he comes back around?"

 

"I don't care. My relationship with him isn't hinged on what we do beneath his sheets. I'll go right back to serving him without question."

 

" _Christ_ , you're just fucking like him."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> insert extremely long apology about how long it takes me to produce chapters but thanks everyone for sticking around, i'm getting close to wrapping this thing up finally and I appreciate y'all


	9. интерлюдия

 

The first time you heard _that phrase_ , you felt as if you stopped while the world continued to spin beneath you. Blinding flashes of color bloomed behind your eyelids, bright like the desert sun the morning Ocelot had run his knife through your hand. There were vague sensations of movement and little hints of pain here and there, but for several seconds, you were not present in your own body.

 

When you came to, you could feel blood drying between your fingers. It was thick and syrup-like in a way that you knew blood shouldn't be. You screamed, mostly just to hear your own voice, until your throat burned and your chest hurt. Part of it was rage, part of it was hurt.

 

You knew what had just happened, and for the first time, you felt the sting of betrayal. 

 

It hurt far more than the open bullet wound in your side. It was a deep, raw feeling that ached and pulled at your insides, as if it could suck you down into yourself and drown you in your anger. 

 

**_You did this_** , you howled. _**You did this to me and I'm broken.**_

 

Ocelot's red gloves curled around the sides of your face, smearing blood across your cheeks and into your hair. You could feel him shaking as he held you against him, his fingers tighter than they should have been, his silver hair whipped by the helicopter behind him.

 

" _You have to trust me!_ " he yelled. " _Serval, you have to trust me!_ "

 

You couldn't say anything. You wound your hands into his scarf so tightly that you were certain you were bruising your own palms, but there was so much blood you didn't think you would ever see the true color of your skin again. 

 

He considered your silence as hesitation and hauled you into the chopper, half-throwing you onto your back. You struggled against him but he was faster, scrambling over you so that he could bear hug you and drag you in. Even when the helicopter lurched into motion, you were grabbing for handfuls of hair, screaming for him to let you go or drop you out of the helicopter.

 

**_Let them burn me with the whole island._**  

 

He kissed you and you bit down until you tasted blood.


	10. Ten

 

"How do you feel?"

 

Cigar smoke slithered into the corners of your vision. You waved it away, keeping your vision set on the edge of the jungle. 

 

"It hurts," you said simply. "But I don't expect it to ever stop."

 

"A bullet wound won't. Even if you remove the bullet, it's going to haunt you."

 

"It won't be the first ghost."

 

Snake leaned against the balcony railing beside you, following your gaze out to the dense greenery. It was just past sunrise, but the humidity was already so thick in the air that you could see condensation gathering on his iced tea. 

 

Mornings in Zanzibar were like a steam bath. Once the sun rose over the trees, it quite literally baked the previous night's dew until the jungle was a hazy sauna. Snake's compound was not without some luxuries, though; air conditioning and shade trees kept his exorbitant cabana-style quarters more than livable. 

 

"Ocelot should be here in the next few weeks. I'll give you a choice," he started, taking a slow drag off his cigar. "Stay here with me. Be mine. He has things to do for me out there that don't require an extra set of hands and I can make great use of you here. Rehab you. Maybe even send you off to your own base."

 

"Or?"

 

"You go back to Russia with him knowing what he's done to you."

 

"I'm a tool to you," you snapped. "I'm a tool and you're angling this in your favor."

 

"Can you really say you're human, Serval?"

 

"I could ask you the same."

 

"My answer doesn't change what's been wired together up there in your brain. Ocelot made you his tool. A sleeper agent of the worst variety. And you want to get semantic with me over it? If you go back to Russia with him, you're just dense."

 

"And you assume a lot about our relationship," you added, and Snake huffed. 

 

"Do I? I think you're delusional. You're honestly delusional. He let you into his bed and now you think you know everything about him," Snake shot back. He stabbed the butt of his cigar into the balcony railing harder than necessary. "You keep thinking he's going to come running back to you, like none of this ever happened and everything in your little Serval and Ocelot fantasy world is going to come together and be some bullshit fairy tale."

 

"You fucked him once and left him behind to go play house with Miller in the Caribbean until you needed him. Don't think I don't know about that. You had Miller wrapped around your finger. You let him take the biggest fall not once, but twice. And you're going to stand there and tell me you aren't about to do the same to Ocelot? I don't fucking _trust_ you, Snake. I don't. I never will. Because this is what you do. You're the Legendary Soldier when you want something done and when you don't want to do it yourself you make puppets that take the reputation hit for you. You let your men fall for you because at best you're manipulative and at worst you're a fucking coward daydreaming about war games."

 

Snake bristled, his one blue eye focused on something beyond the edge of the jungle. 

 

"Your biggest mistake is assuming I've manipulated Ocelot into doing any of this," he mumbled. "I've never asked. He's never been able to let me go. Not since Groznyj Grad."

 

"But you've taken advantage of that. I know he's a blind fool. I know he loved you. He's an idiot but he's an idiot I've spent my entire waking life with and I am intimately familiar with the concept of a one-sided relationship," you told him. "Just because you didn't outright trick him into working for you doesn't mean that taking advantage of him is any better. Still manipulation in its own right."

 

For quite some time, Snake had nothing to say. He sipped his tea and fiddled with the stump of his cigar, pensive, watching the morning patrols change guard and knowing you had him cornered in every conceivable way.

 

"I'm going back with him. I haven't even heard his reasoning on why he programmed me," you said. "I guarantee you he has a better excuse than you do."

 

"I should have fucking shot you."

 

* * *

 

 

Some part of you expected Snake to kick down your door at night and sink a bullet between your bloodshot eyes. You were easy prey in your current state; the bullet wound was closed but the site was cripplingly sore and painful. His medical staff hovered over you like suburban parents, asking to see your incisions and stitches after every training exercise, scolding him around every corner for overloading you. 

 

"I said I'd treat them here. Didn't say I wouldn't work them to foot the bill," he'd grumble. 

 

Truthfully, it was part of the agreement. Ocelot had "loaned" you to Snake temporarily to recover in peace, away from Diamond Dogs and away from the fray of napalming an island that may or may not have still contained XOF agents and Eli's motley crew. 

 

You knew it happened. You just didn't know the extent or how or exactly when. You also knew Ocelot had called the air strike, but you imagined it was for very good reason. Or at least you hoped. 

 

Paperwork kept your brain occupied. Paperwork kept you from replaying the incident over and over again, from endlessly analyzing Ocelot screaming that forsaken string of French words over the roar of the chopper blades. You were half-scared to think of the words in the correct order; would it trigger the same response that it did spoken aloud?

 

You remembered your teeth splitting his lip. The feeling was sickening and you hated it. 

 

_**You wouldn't have lived if I didn't say it.** _

 

He said it over and over again, pinning you to the cold metal. You fought him in a blind rage until your body began to slip into shock. From there on out it was little flashes and hints of the world around you; you vaguely recalled Medical taking you in back at Mother Base and Kaz laying his hand across your face once you were stabilized. There was so much shouting. Mostly Kaz. Sometimes Ocelot. 

 

You woke up in Ocelot's quarters, lucid enough to know that Snake was somewhere close by but not quite enough to tell which one. Ocelot ran something through an IV that stung and the next time you woke up, you were in Zanzibar. 

 

Several reports slid across your desk as time passed slowly like cold molasses. Each one filled in a little more than the last. Eli and his crew had holed up with Sahelanthropus and a strain of the virus, XOF swarmed the island like flies, and you were trailing Venom when you were blindsided by a flash grenade.

 

Ocelot wrote on the back of one report that Venom was down for an extended period of time due to the concussive blow from the flash-bang. You pieced together that you were shot in that moment, evidenced by Ocelot's frantic scribbling about you "losing consciousness" but somehow in the next few pages the XOF squad disappeared and you were loaded into the helicopter.

 

Snake pilfered each document out of curiosity.

 

"I know what happened," he said one day, hovering just out of sight as you settled in for target practice. "I know what you did."

 

"What, killed a bunch of XOF agents?" 

 

"Well, I mean... yeah, but don't you care how?"

 

"Ocelot will tell me," you said cooly, resting your face against the stock of your rifle. The curve of the wood against your face was almost comforting. "You're just prodding."

 

"He teach you how to shoot?"

 

Each shot sank through the same hole on your paper target.

 

"Guess he did," Snake huffed. 

 

"Where's Kaz?"

 

"Do you always open up with a right hook or do you just not have the social tact to operate otherwise?"

 

"He said the same thing once. I guess he got that from you." You took your time reloading, never breaking eye contact as you pressed another set of five bullets into the clip. "Is he still at Mother Base?"

 

"Diamond Dogs will be mine shortly. Make of that what you will."

 

"You're just going to absorb them like a business deal? Like nothing ever happened between the two of you? Or have you not given him the great good news that your alter ego is the one who's been tucking him in at night and not you?" you pressed. 

 

"Are you trying to annoy your way out of here? What can I possibly do to placate you, Serval?"

 

You didn't answer. Your shot didn't deviate when you felt his hand settle a little too roughly on your shoulder. 

 

"What do you want?" he asked again. "We're just going in circles like rabid dogs. I get it. You hate me for whatever reason. I hate you because you're the most insubordinate, pigheaded little shit I've ever encountered in my life. What can I do to get you to just...drop it?"

 

"You know why I hate you. You just don't want to own up to it because that makes you the bad guy. I would have been all for helping you and your cause if you didn't get where you are by manipulating literally everyone around you. So unless you have something to say about that, an apology or maybe y'know a promise that you'll stay out of his _fucking skull_ because if I have to watch him unravel again, over you, I will be your end."

 

He sat down beside you, flicking his cigar out onto the range.

 

"We've been through this, Serval," he said, almost so lowly that you couldn't hear him. "We just keep coming back around to this. I didn't hold the needle to his arm at gunpoint. There was a plan. He chose to follow the plan in a way I didn't anticipate. I didn't know what he was doing, and he asked me not to communicate to keep cover. What would you have had me do?"

 

"The _plan_ never should have happened and it's going to be the end of all of us."

 

* * *

 

 

For all your hate and rage, you had to admit that Snake was mostly right. Ocelot had taken several things out of context and over a line that should have been established long ago, but you weren't angry at him for it.

 

Ocelot had done what he thought would work. He used his training, awful though it was. The same training that he passed on to you. Though you didn't think brainwashing yourself into believing a stunt double was real was the right way to go about it, it was indeed clever and it worked until it was no longer needed, but at his expense. 

 

It didn't change your opinion of Snake. You still kept him at arm's length and you had ousted his personality. But when you sat back and looked at the whole picture, it made sense to work with him to keep things on an even keel. Ocelot would be pleased, you would be occupied, Snake would have your talent at his disposal. Two Ocelots were far better than none. 

 

His cause? Questionable, at best, but having Snake on your side would be your ace in the hole. Your bail money, so to speak. There was something interesting about turning his own tactics back on him with him being none the wiser. 

 

"I'm not staying, but I want to...smooth things out," you said, circling him in the kitchen early one morning. "You have to understand where I'm coming from and I know you don't."

 

"You aren't wrong. I know nothing about you and really you know nothing about me, so all this ankle-biting each other is extremely misguided," he agreed.

 

"Let's get it all straight. Once and for all."

 

"Be my guest."

 

He offered you a place at his dining room table, strangely casual to be caught in his pajamas and robe. Had you not been painfully aware of your actual location, you would have guessed you were at a mansion somewhere in Panama with his choice of decor and extravagant dinnerware. The crystal made you nervous and you wondered how he secured such "funding".

 

"How much do you know?" you asked. 

 

"That you are his...weird little brainchild. Past that? Nothing."

 

You sighed, half-heartedly stirring the lukewarm coffee you'd been carrying all morning. 

 

"Is that too weird of a word?" he laughed, and you tried not to roll your eyes.

 

"No, I'm just incredibly frustrated that none of this was spoken about," you answered. "Ocelot found me in a prison camp. I don't know how long I was there or where I came from. I have no clue who I am. He, for some reason, thought that was rather fascinating and hauled me back to Afghanistan with him where he trained me and we worked well together so he kept me around."

 

"How did he train you?"

 

"Languages, accents, combat, behavior...everything. He treated me like a doll until I was mostly functional again. Had me on diets, rehabbed all the things that were broken from being tortured."

 

Snake seemed genuinely interested. He leaned into the conversation, ignoring his hot plate of breakfast. 

 

"We did everything from drug resistance to hands-on interrogation. Interrogation simulations. Hostage situations. Negotiations. I was supposed to be on my own but we got so used to working together that he just sort of kept me. I didn't want to leave. And this is the longest I've been separated from him since," you continued. "I've never been able to figure out if I fell in love with him on my own or if it was a side effect of him slipping me DMT for breakfast."

 

"That's where he got you," Snake said suddenly. "The trigger. That had to be when he planted it. What exactly happened?"

 

"Probably. We were at a KGB outpost and he started putting something in my water. When I figured that out he started hiding it in my food and even in my toothpaste. I woke up in the middle of the desert after a few weeks of progressively losing my shit and we fought. I detoxed for days."

 

"He built a failsafe. In the event that shit went sideways, your trigger was his way to put you down."

 

You shrugged. "Can't say that I blame him considering the state of my brain."

 

"Did you tell him that you loved him?"

 

Something about the question ruffled you the wrong way but you shrugged it off, taking a stiff swig of your tepid coffee instead. 

 

"I never said anything about it. Ever. Never made a move, never even raised suspicions," you said firmly, hoping to change the subject. "I didn't mistake our intimacy for anything other than our own level of trust."

 

"And you were with him before Cyprus?"

 

"Far before. Through it and after. Miller and I did a lot of footwork for Diamond Dogs while he worked in Cyprus. Which brings me to my own set of questions."

 

"You want to know what happened in Cyprus?"

 

You nodded.

 

"I'll let him tell you. Because even _I_ am not entirely sure. But I suppose I can fill you in on other things since we're playing _Quid pro quo_."

 

You talked until the sun began to sink back into the dense jungle.

 


End file.
